


Stimulus

by PrinceofBadassery



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Anxiety Disorder, Autism Spectrum, Gen, M/M, Mental Illness, Stimming, Tumblr: imaginetonyandbucky, bucky barnes needs hug, can I use this tag?, did I mention that Tony care a lot?, it's based on a prompt, like a lot, pre winteriron, tony stark cares a lot, tony stark is a god damn genius
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 19:10:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10040558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceofBadassery/pseuds/PrinceofBadassery
Summary: Loosely based on the prompt from the imaginetonyandbucky tumblr:"Can someone write something about how Bucky has an issue with squeezing things when he gets upset/worried/etc, and Tony ends up giving him play-dough as a joke, but it ends up really helping him because it gives him something to mess with?"Very loosely.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure if this was a good idea to write, because it's yet another topic close to my heart, so put me down gently.

At this point Tony was considering not replacing the couch table in the living room at all. It would seriously throw the whole design concept of the room but so did a glass table splintered into a thousand pieces because a certain someone couldn't keep his super strength under control. He had already replaced the table three times, after the second time it had been broken he had ordered the splinter-proof glass because getting glass shards out of the thick carpet was a nightmare and took forever. Tony had people for that but it had been considerably easier to just throw the whole table out when the glass top was shattered but still in one piece thanks to the foil keeping it together. Tony had even called the company who made the tables and asked if they could use bullet proof glass instead. They couldn't. 

Now he was standing in the living room looking at the mess that once again had been created. Clint had his feet up on said mess, not minding the cracked surface and was reading a comic about himself dressed completely in purple. Odd, Tony thought for a moment before shaking his head. His eyes focused on the fist sized junk that was missing from one side of the table, like someone had taken a huge bite out of it. Someone on the TV laughed loudly, Tony didn't think it was funny.

"They really got my love for coffee down." Clint mumbled from the couch. Tony rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, turned on his heel and headed towards the suspects living quarters. There was only one person who could be responsible for breaking yet another table, along with the dozens of glasses and cups, several door frames and uncountable pieces of cutlery.

James Buchanan Barnes had been at the Avengers tower for 2 months and 23 days now and - as Tony found out three days into his stay - he had a tendency to break stuff. Tony hadn't been thrilled that the Winter Soldier was to stay in his tower, it had been one of the conditions of SHIELD - what was left of it anyway - for Barnes to regain some form of freedom. He wasn't allowed out of the tower either, at least not at this moment in time. No weapons, surveillance 24/7 those kind of things.

Tony had even been appointed his legal guardian, Steve being too emotionally invested in the case, and Tony being somewhat of second in charge of the Avengers. Steve had ruined three punching bags after that particular SHIELD meeting, but at least he got to take his friend home, whatever that meant. 

Barnes was a quiet guy, skittish and broody. Always had that look on his face. There was the saying that someone looked like they had just seen a ghost, but Tony felt Barnes was the ghost in that situation, not wanting to be seen but spotted anyway and having no idea how to handle that. Clint liked him, probably the whole brainwashing thing. Steve was a mother hen and Tony felt sorry for Barnes when the Captain hovered around him and he looked around with pleading eyes for someone to get Steve away from him. 

If one could trust the SHIELD reports Barnes had actually come a long way after the Washington incident. He was feeding himself, talked to people if prompted, could take care of his own hygiene, even attended social gathering like movie nights and meals sometimes. Even if he stood out like a sore thumb every time. 

All in all Tony wasn't too bothered to have him around, if he let him take a look at his arm he might even start to like the guy, but the whole breaking stuff all the god damn time was getting a problem and Tony needed to address it. 

Barnes' apartment was actually just a room. The other Avenger's had their own floors, even if they only used part of it, but Barnes had been put in a spare room that connected to Steve's apartment. Steve had insisted on sharing an apartment with him and Barnes had shrugged his shoulders. Tony had a wall torn down and a second door installed so now Barnes' could come and go as he pleased without having to go through Steve's whole floor. 

It was that door that Tony now stood in front, Jarvis had told him Barnes' had been in here since he broke the table in the common area. He gave Barnes the courtesy of knocking and waiting a couple of seconds before opening the door, just in case the guy was naked and wanted to cover himself. 

Barnes wasn't naked though, quite the opposite, he was dressed in his usual baggy hoddie and sweatpants. Clothes that did absolutely nothing to show off his figure. At least Steve had the decency to wear shirts one size too small, so Tony could look at the bulging barely contained muscles. 

He was sitting on the bed and hadn't noticed Tony yet - didn't acknowledge Tony yet - because Tony was certain the guy with super hearing had noticed him the moment he stepped out of the elevator. 

But Barnes had his eyes closed and was holding onto a pillow like his life depended on it, rhythmically squeezing one corner of it while rocking his whole body back and forth. He was also humming.

Tony was stunned for a moment. 

"Are you alright?" He asked after another 

Barnes jumped and scrambled back on the bed, looking at Tony with wide eyes, he obviously hadn't noticed Tony after all. 

"I'm sorry about the table." He said, clutching the pillow to his chest. Tony feared it would soon suffer the same fate as the table the way the fabric strained and Barnes wasn't even using his metal hand. In fact his metal arm was almost hidden under the pillow. He looked so afraid, huddled at the far end of the bed and holding perfectly still, though, after Tony took a closer look he could see that Barnes was almost vibrating from how tense he held his body. 

Tony felt like he had just interrupted something important. He had seen similar behaviour before, people doing repetitive motions and zoning out from the world around them. It had been at a charity event for an organization helping disabled children. A girl at the venue had done almost the exact same thing, rocking her body back and forth, she had a toy that made jingly noises. Her mother explained to him that she was doing this to calm herself down when she was overstimulated. Tony later learned that the girl had autism. 

That made him think. Tony was certain Barnes didn't go around breaking things on purpose, so far he had assumed the guy was just clumsy and couldn't gauge his strength properly, but if it was a stress response then there was no point in yelling at him. Barnes looked like a scared animal right now, cornered and fearing for his life judging by the way he looked at Tony, no, Barnes didn't even look at him, his eyes were focused somewhere to the right of Tony. 

The whole speech Tony had prepared about being careful with other people's properties died in his throat.

"Don't worry about it." He said instead. "Just.. be careful. Don't hurt yourself."

Tony left Barnes' room feeling downcast. He hadn't realized that Barnes might not be doing as good as he thought. Steve had never said anything and he was the one who spent the most time with Barnes, yet Tony felt responsible. The guy was living in his tower after all, he was the legal guardian, albeit only on paper, Barnes was his responsibility. 

The lab came alive when Tony stepped inside and he went to work immediately. There was a problem that needed a solution and he was the best person for the job. First he brought up surveillance footage of Barnes in all the situations he was breaking things. Tony tried to find a pattern, a trigger, a common denominator. Without any exception there were always one or more people with him when it happened, the situations differed but one thing stayed consistent in every incident. There was always a lot of noise and Barnes' always had that far-away look on his face the moment it happened and most of the time he needed a couple of tries before something broke in his hands, like he was squeezing the fork or cup several times and once it broke he looked surprised himself. He always left, fleeing the scene after that. 

It was all Tony needed to know. It was a response to the stress in his environment, Barnes needed something to calm himself, something to hold onto. 

He brought up articles about autism and anything related to it, he knew very little about the subject and that was a good place to start his research. There was the possibility that Barnes was neurodivergent, the thought had crossed Tony's mind, and he had just not been diagnosed back in the 40s or now with all the therapists he had been seeing in this day and age. An anxiety disorder was also very likely and maybe had been overlooked by the doctors, who blamed Barnes' brainwashing for his behaviour. Tony had no authority on that but what he knew was that Barnes had suffered a hell of a lot of brain damage over the last 70 years and whether he was born with his brain wired differently or if HYDRA had fucked it up that didn't matter to Tony. The problem stayed the same: The guy needed a coping mechanism for sensory overloads that worked and didn't ruin Tony's fortune one couch table at the time.

"Stimming" was what everything pointed to. A repetitive body movement that self-stimulates one or more senses in a regulated manner, according to the definition on the Autism Wiki. It helped to counteract the stimulations from other sensations, loud noises, touches, negative feelings. In general stimming was a typical human behaviour, it was just more pronounced in people with autism or anxiety disorders. Even as Tony read the articles he noticed how he played around with the pencil and tapped it onto the desk rhythmically. Barnes had been doing nothing else before Tony had interrupted him. 

Tony pulled up every site that sold stimming and stress relieving toys that he could find, then bought every toy that could be squeezed and didn't make a sound. He was surprised to find sites that had hand crafted toys made by autistic people for autistic people, he didn't buy those for himself, instead he put in a large order to be donated to organizations helping neurodivergent people. Tony didn't want to put carefully hand made toys through the series of tests and possibly destroy them in the process just to see if they could keep up with Barnes' super strength.

And so he got to work, new toys were delivered every day and Tony put them to the test. His lab was soon littered with colorful balls and the remains of their fallen comrades. Compression stress was the most important if Barnes' main stim was squeezing something but Tony tested tensile stress and shear stress just for good measure and one after another the toys exploded or ripped in the testing machines. After a week he was no further than before and he dug around in the piles of machines for his chemical analyzers while Dum-E discarded the last evidence of the destruction that had occurred in the lab. 

If nothing commercially produced met his high standards then he would have to come up with something himself. Creating a polymer that was soft and squishy but at the same time able to withstand a lot of stress was no easy task, but then again, he had created a new element with a particle accelerator made from scraps, what was a macromolecule compared to that. 

Tony needed a week. 

It would have been faster but Doom had decided to throw a party in Central Park and the doombot guests had to be entertained for a couple of hours and the resulting clean up had taken twice as long.

Now Tony was sitting in his lab working on an armor piece, a couple of tables over there was an innocent looking red ball the size of an orange. He had instructed Jarvis to notify Barnes to come to the lab. The AI had told him he was on his way. That had been 20 minutes ago. 

Tony was about to send out a search party in case Barnes got lost in the tower when the man finally appeared at the door, looking more than a little anxious and thoroughly disheveled.

"You wanted to see me? I didn't break anything." He said, not looking at Tony, his gaze was flickering across the lab. He held his body rigid, holding onto his left arm with his right hand. Even from across the lab Tony could see the strain with which he held his body. 

"That's not want I wanted to speak to you about." Tony didn't put down his tools and instead casually continued his work.

"Is it about the arm?" Barnes asked and oh how Tony would love to get his hands on it, but so far this had been a no-go subject on Barnes' part.

"Only if you want me to." Tony said, glancing up with a smile, but Barnes wasn't looking at him.

"I don't." 

"That's fine." Tony shrugged. "I actually need your help." 

That got Barnes' attention and he turned to Tony, looking more than a little confused. "My help?" 

"Yeah, see that ball over there?" Tony gestured to the table where the new toy was sitting. "I was working on a new material and I need see how it holds up under pressure, thought you could put your super strength to some use and test it a bit for me." 

Barnes stepped closer, in that careful hesitant way of his, still tense like he was ready to bail at any moment. 

"It's not gonna bite." Tony said and Barnes finally looked at him. A success in Tony's eyes even if it was just to give him his deadly death glare of death. Barnes was good at those. He picked up the ball though and that's what counted. Tony was almost vibrating in his seat with nervousness. Barnes was weighing the ball in his right hand but didn't really do anything else with it.

"How does it feel?" Tony asked, trying to sound nonchalant while he was almost exploding with excitement. His body betrayed him when his hand stabbed the screwdriver into the wiring and ruined two hours of fine tuning. 

"It's...alright." Barnes didn't sound convinced.

"Try squeezing it."

"Why am I doing this? Why didn't you ask Steve?"

"Does Steve have a metal arm that can exert twice as much compression strength as a beefed up super soldier hand?" He asked pointedly. "Now squeeze it."

Barnes made a sour face then grumbled a "Fine." under his breath and started squeezing the toy. 

The change wasn't instant, Tony noticed begrudgingly. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, that Barnes suddenly morphed into a carefree guy without a problem in the world because Tony gave him a ball to squeeze? But maybe there was a little bit less tension in the slope of Barnes' shoulders as he played around with the ball, first pressing dents into it with his fingers before giving it a more throughout squeeze. 

Tony turned back to the armor piece he had been working on and left Barnes to play around with the new toy. He cursed when he saw what he had done to the wiring accidentally and started on repairing the damage. He soon got engulfed in his work and forgot Barnes was even in the lab with him until the other spoke again.

"Like this?" 

Barnes was holding up the ball in his left hand, it didn't look much like a ball anymore. He had squished it so hard the red color had changed to light pink in some parts as the material bulged out between the metal fingers. 

"Oh, yeah, just like that. Awesome, it works." Tony quickly said. He was impressed, he had designed the material to give more resistance the more force was exerted on it so it always had a nice grip to it, something firm to hold onto. Barnes must have squeezed really slowly to get it to that state. 

"Good job." Tony gave him a thumbs up and turned back to his armor. The mission was a success in his eyes, Barnes had been introduce to his new stimming toy and it didn't break under the ultimate stress test. He mentally patted himself on the shoulder. He was a god damn genius. 

He didn't feel like a god damn genius five minutes later when he noticed Barnes was still standing in the middle of the lab, the ball was on the table but he still had his fingertips on it, like he had just put it down but couldn't quite let go. He wondered how long the man had been standing there like that. There was a deep frown on Barnes' face, his gaze glued to the toy, confusion and longing both present. It occurred to Tony that he had never said Barnes could keep it. He was so used to other people just taking the stuff he made for them without a second thought that it had been natural for him to assume Barnes would just do the same. 

Barnes wasn't like other people though, he had been kept imprisoned and used as a weapon for over 70 years, he had barely acted human when they had gotten to him after DC. According to SHIELD files he hadn't even eaten food placed in front of him in the very beginning.

"You can keep it." Tony said softly but Barnes jumped anyway, his body tensing up again. He looked up - the first eye contact with Tony even if it only lasted for a second before he looked at the toy again, then ever so slowly he wrapped his flesh hand around it and picked it up. 

"Thanks." Barnes mumbled and Tony only had time to nod encouragingly before the other man was out of the lab and gone from view.


End file.
